Lamar Alexander

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. As we debate high gas prices, and as we hear these stories from Tennesseans and other Americans, let's be clear what we need to do. We all want an energy future where America has achieved clean energy independence, but that is very different than what we have today. But the bridge to that future in a country that uses 25 percent of all the energy in the world is more American energy now. We Republicans support that, and most of the Democrats do not--which is why they propose more lawsuits and taxes, but no exploration. Just as one example, to conclude: Why not let Virginia do what four other States do and put oil and natural gas rigs 50 miles out where you cannot see them, and take 37.5 percent of the revenues and put it in a trust fund for schools or beach nourishment, give 12.5 percent of the revenues to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, and put some more American oil now into the world marketplace so prices would stabilize and begin to go down? I offered that amendment to the Budget Resolution earlier this year. It was defeated 52 to 47. Most Republicans voted for it. Most Democrats voted no. We are for more American energy now, and they say no. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I resent being resented and ask unanimous consent for a couple minutes to get into this colloquy, if I may.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I am trying to get to a result here. Ever since I have been a Senator, I have proposed a cap-and-trade system on powerplants to deal with climate change. All I am saying is it would be better to keep it simple, to take the money collected and send it straight back home rather than bringing it up here and putting it in a slush fund. If ``slush fund'' is offensive to the Senator from California, I am sorry, but that is what large funds tend to be here. It is mandatory spending that is earmarked for the next 42 years. So removing that slush fund would be an improvement on their bill. Take that out. Send the money back to the people. Return it to the individuals who paid it. That is all I am suggesting. No one ought to be offended by that. If we need to invest dollars in solar research, for example, I sponsored the amendment for the solar energy tax credit that is in the law now. Let's do that separately and with a clear appropriation, rather than a 42-year mandatory spending program that is drawn from $800 billion. I thank the Chair and Senators for their courtesy.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I understand under the regular order that leaves me with a couple of minutes plus 20 minutes, is that correct?

Mr. ALEXANDER. May I ask the Chair to let me know when 3 minutes remains in my time.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Tennessee up to 5 minutes to rebut the Senator from Pennsylvania.

Mr. ALEXANDER. If I may answer the Senator briefly, the answer is, correct, to the Senator.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I thank the Chair. In our region where the Tennessee Valley Authority produces about 3 percent of all electricity in the country, estimates are that we would need 700 new megawatts of power in the next year. That is a coal plant and a half. That means 30 or 40 new coal plants around the country just to meet that, if the rest of the country is like TVA. That is a real issue as well. Our Nation's overreliance on oil from other countries is a huge issue for us. We don't like being in the pocket of people who are selling us oil, including some who are trying to kill us by bankrolling terrorism. We want to be more independent than that in the world. It affects almost every aspect of our national security. It is costing $500 billion a year. Overdependence on foreign oil is driving down the value of the dollar. That lack of independence in our supply is a major issue. Clean air is an issue. Carbon is not the only pollutant in the air that I am concerned about, coming from Tennessee, nor would it be for a Senator from California either. We have a real concern about sulfur, nitrogen, and mercury. I have, since I have been in the Senate, supported legislation in a bipartisan way--first with Senator Carper-- to stiffen requirements on mercury, nitrogen, and sulfur as well as begin to cap powerplant emissions for carbon. That is a little different perspective as well, rather than just saying carbon is the only problem. There is a range of problems we need to deal with. My preference, as I will say in my remarks, is that we should have a new Manhattan Project for clean energy independence. That is the real way to deal with high gas prices, high electric prices, climate change, clean air, and the national security implications of too much dependence on foreign oil. But let me go back to the beginning and start with some problems with this bill. What is wrong with Lieberman-Warner? The first thing wrong is that the Warner-Lieberman bill, according to an analysis by the Environmental Protection Agency, would increase the tax on gasoline by 53 cents per gallon by the year 2030, and an additional 90 cents or so after that. That's a 53-cent-per-gallon gas tax increase, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That is not some Republican policy group speaking--that is the EPA. I intend, when the opportunity comes, to offer an amendment to strike from the bill the provisions that would put a 53-cent gas tax increase on the American people. That is the first thing wrong with the bill. The second thing wrong with the bill is that the Environmental Protection Agency says a 53-cent gas tax increase may hurt the pocketbook of the American consumer, but it will not reduce the carbon. It is not enough to cause people to drive much less and it is an ineffective way to do what the sponsors of the bill want to do, so we would have the worst of both worlds--we would be increasing the gas tax by 53 cents per gallon, and we would not be doing what we aim to do which is to reduce carbon with that effort. The third thing wrong with the bill is it creates, over the next 10 years--according to the Congressional Budget Office--what I would call a trillion dollar slush fund. It would collect money--in effect a carbon tax, through a cap-and-trade system on the entire economy of the United States--and bring it to Washington, DC, where Members of Congress would, over the next 40 years, create about 42 mandatory entitlement spending programs for that money. Nothing is more dangerous in Washington, DC than a $1 trillion slush fund with a group of Congressmen with ideas about how to spend it. My cure for that, and I think there will be amendments to this effect, is that to the extent there is any money brought into Washington as a result of a cap-and-trade auction--whether it is only on powerplants or the whole economy--that money ought to be returned directly to the taxpayers, especially the working people who will be having to pay for the higher electric rates or the higher gas prices caused by this legislation. Those are three problems I have with the bill. No. 1, the 53-cent- per-gallon gas tax increase--that is what the EPA says. I don't think anyone doubts that. No. 2, it doesn't work because the EPA also says-- and so does other testimony before the committee of which Senator Boxer is chairman--that an economy-wide cap on fuel is not an effective way to reduce the amount of carbon produced, at least in the early years. And third is the trillion dollar slush fund for Members of Congress to use for their own great ideas they come up with. I can't think of a worse way to spend the money. It is well intentioned, but the bill as it has grown has become, in effect, with all respect, a well-intentioned contraption and it creates boards and czars and commissioners and money, and it is too complicated and too expensive. It has the potential for too many surprises. It overestimates what we in the United States have the wisdom to do in writing legislation about an economy that produces about 30 percent of all the wealth in the world every year and uses 25 percent of the energy. This is a very complex free market economy we have here and we have to be very careful about how we affect it. Having said that, would there be a better way to deal with climate change? The answer is, I believe so. I wish to say briefly what I think that is. I believe it would be to put a cap-and-trade system on powerplants alone--that is 40 percent of the carbon produced in the American economy--and a low-carbon fuel standard on fuel. A low-carbon fuel standard, which is already in this legislation, is very simply the idea that beginning in the year 2023 we would control the amount of carbon that fuel in cars and trucks could produce, and that is it. In other words, instead of putting cap and trade on the whole economy as the Lieberman-Warner bill would do, we should only put cap and trade on powerplants--nothing else--and use a different approach for fuel. Why would cap and trade work for powerplants? We have a lot of experience with cap and trade for powerplants. Cap and trade is simply a system of setting limits on the amount of carbon to come out of the smokestacks at a powerplant--if it is a coal plant or whatever kind of plant it might be. We have experience with measuring that. We actually have measurements for sulfur, nitrogen, and now mercury. We could do it for carbon. We could select effective enforcement dates that had some realistic relationship to the development of technology--for example, the technology to recapture the carbon that comes out of coal plants. And, in doing so, I believe that could be an effective way to begin to control the source of 40 percent of the carbon produced in the United States--the powerplants. Would it add to the cost of electricity? Yes, it would. What would we do with the revenues from credits that were auctioned if there were a cap-and-trade system? We would give the money back. Not through a lot of federal spending programs, not to the State governments, not to pet projects; we would give it straight back to the working people to help pay their electric bills because they are the ones who would have those higher rates. That would leave manufacturers alone. It wouldn't drive them overseas. It would avoid setting up all these boards and commissions and czars and government bureaucracies. Then what would we do about fuel? Already we have done the single most important thing we could do as a Congress for climate change when we passed higher fuel efficiency standards at the end of last year. We did that in a bipartisan way, too. In 2007, we increased by 40 percent the fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks in the United States for the first time in over 30 years. Testimony from David Greene of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory said that is the single most important thing the Congress can do to deal with climate change, overdependence on foreign oil, or clean air. And we did it. That is the first thing. But there is another step we could do and that is already in this bill. It is the low-carbon fuel standard that I talked about a few moments ago. As it is now presented in the bill, it would require fuel suppliers to lower the carbon content of transportation fuels by 5 percent less per unit of energy in 2023, and 10 percent less in 2028. The advantage of a low-carbon fuel standard, unlike the cap- and-trade system which is ineffective in terms of reducing carbon in fuel, is that it would be 100 percent effective because it would require a certain amount of reduction. Second, it is the way we normally deal with fuel and pollution. For example, the low-sulfur diesel standards for big trucks that the Clinton EPA started and the Bush EPA finished is making a big difference in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee by reducing the amount of sulfur in the air starting this year. That is a form of fuel standard. This would be a low-carbon fuel standard, just like the low-sulfur diesel standard is for big trucks. It is simple. There would be a timeline that we could prepare for, and it might actually lower gasoline prices rather than adding 53 cents per gallon to the price of gasoline as the Lieberman-Warner bill would, because if you know that there needs to be a low-carbon fuel standard, then you might, for example, choose electricity as a fuel and have a plug-in hybrid vehicle and that would reduce the amount of carbon for fuel. Or you might advance research for biofuels made from crops we don't eat, such as cellulosic ethanol, and use more of that kind of fuel. But we wouldn't have Senators and Congressmen and people who are elected to office making judgments about picking and choosing winners and losers. If you are asking me how I would do it, I would imagine that if we looked ahead a couple years and had to guess today what kind of climate change legislation might actually pass the Senate, the House of Representatives, and be signed by the President, I think it will be a very simple piece of legislation, probably cap and trade for powerplants, with effective dates regulated or adjusted to the development of technology that would permit powerplants to meet the standards. Then, for fuel, it would be the higher fuel efficiency standards we already passed into law last year, plus a low-carbon fuel standard. That would cover two-thirds of the carbon we produce in the United States. The current bill only presumes to cover 85 percent. The approach I am suggesting would fairly distribute the burden because most people buy electricity and most people buy gasoline. It should be lower cost, fewer surprises, and much less complicated than the bill we are debating in the Senate today. I might add to that framework I suggested, we would take whatever money was auctioned off in the cap-and-trade system on powerplants and--rather than building what I call a slush fund--refund it to the taxpayers. That money would come right in and go right back home, right back to the taxpayers. It wouldn't stop. Finally, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, this is an important day in the Senate because we are debating an important issue. It is one the country cares about and should care about. It is one which a great number of Senators here on both sides of the aisle have discussed. I congratulate Senator Warner and Senator Lieberman for their leadership. The chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee is here. She has worked diligently on this and made it a priority. We are doing what the Senate ought to do. What the American people do not like is when they see us engaged in what I like to call playpen politics--when we start trying to see who can stick fingers in each other's eyes. What they do like to see is for us to have principled, vigorous debates about important issues that have to do with the future of our country, and how we deal with climate change is one of those issues. That is how we are dealing with this. We voted by a large margin, Democrats and Republicans both, to proceed with this debate and say this is important enough to put on the floor. The majority leader apparently is giving us a significant amount of time to debate this--as we say in Tennessee, to air out the issues--and that is surely what we ought to do. We began this morning in a bipartisan breakfast. Senator Lieberman and I are the hosts, along with some others, of a bipartisan breakfast on Tuesday mornings. The Presiding Officer often attends those meetings as well. The purpose of that is for Democrats and Republicans to sit around a table in a room, with no staff and no media, and discuss issues about which we do not agree in hopes we can find a way to deal with them. This is an important day in the Senate. We are doing exactly what we ought to be doing on an issue of importance to the American people. The Lieberman-Warner bill is the basis for this discussion. We are going to be hearing this week a lot of criticisms of the Lieberman-Warner bill and I am going to make some of them myself. But that is not to criticize the effort, because we have to start somewhere. These are two of our most distinguished Members. The bill has gone through the committee and it is now on the floor. We would be derelict if we didn't say let's deal with climate change in the correct way. What I wish to do in the time I have remaining is to talk about three things: No. 1, what is wrong with this bill; No. 2, to suggest a better way to deal with the climate change issue; and No. 3, to suggest what I believe is the best way to deal with the entire range of issues that are presented to us which I believe are much larger than climate change. Let me jump to the end of my remarks at the beginning by simply saying: I believe climate change is a real issue, that humans are a contributor to climate change, and we must deal with it. But I also believe that an unusual demand for energy in the United States and the world is a real issue. In our region where the Tennessee Valley Authority produces about----

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, as I understand it, that is what the practice has been recently in the debate.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Except that the rest of my answer to the Senator from Virginia is, any increase in revenue that came into the Government as a result of the cap-and-trade system on powerplants would then go straight back to the working people who pay their electric bills instead of coming into the unwieldy contraption this bill sets up which creates what I call a slush fund.

Mr. ALEXANDER. That would mean a Senator who had 20 minutes could reserve an amount of time used for rebuttal.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President: Could the Chair state the existing unanimous consent agreement?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Finally, the best way to deal with the climate change issue would be a different agenda--one that focuses on clean energy. I would much prefer to see the Senate today talking about clean energy independence rather than the President asking the Saudis to drill for more oil or the Democratic majority saying: Don't explore for oil but raise taxes on gasoline by 53 cents per gallon. I would rather see a Republican or a Democratic President work with the Congress and say: Let's say to the world we are going to launch a new Manhattan Project for clean energy independence. So within 5 years we will be well on our way to saying to the Saudis: We want to be your friends, but we can take or leave your oil. The way to do that would be, first, to begin to do the things we know how to do to increase supply. For the next 30 years, we are going to use oil; it might as well be ours rather than importing it. Explore for oil offshore, and use it from the 2,000 acres in Alaska that is next to 13 million acres of wilderness. Then agree on six or seven grand challenges, such as those I suggested at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory a couple of weeks ago, to give us a chance to make breakthroughs that would give us that kind of clean energy independence. Those would include making plug-in cars and trucks commonplace, a crash program for carbon recapture, for making solar costs equal or as low as fossil fuel costs, advanced research for biofuels from crops that we don't eat, more new green buildings, even fusion for the longer term. I believe from the day the American President and the Congress announced to the world that we were engaged in a new Manhattan Project for clean energy independence that included both supply, demand, and research, what would happen is that the rest of the world would change its way of thinking, that the speculators would get nervous, that the oil-producing countries would get real, and that the price of gas would stabilize and eventually go down. Within 5 years, we would be well on our way to clean energy independence. That is the way to deal with high gas prices, high electric prices. That is also the way to deal with clean air, climate change, and the national security implications of our overdependence on foreign oil. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I first came to the Senate in 1967 as a young aide to Senator Howard Baker and was here during the last two years of the Johnson Presidency. So, I heard firsthand stories about Lyndon Johnson, the Senator, and his larger-than-life, in-your-face personality with other Senators. I felt, in the elections of 1966 and 1968--which were my first in politics--how his support for civil rights legislation had made him a controversial President. I felt, also, at my age, the agony of the war in Vietnam. And I watched, with surprise, on television in 1968 when he said he would not run for another term in the Presidency. Now, today, 40 years later, I see him as I think most Americans clearly see him: as one of our most consequential Presidents and public figures. Every January or February, my youngest son and I go to Cotulla, TX. Senator Hutchison spoke of Cotulla, TX as the place where Lyndon Johnson taught in the elementary grades. I never cease to go to Cotulla, TX without thinking of what a remarkable comment it is upon our country to think that a graduate of San Marcos State could go to Cotulla, TX, and be teaching in an elementary school, and then 13 years later be in the Senate and on his way to being the Minority leader, the Majority leader, the Vice President, and then President of the United States. There are many examples of how in our country anything is possible. I know of no better example than the life of Lyndon Johnson. Others will say more about President Johnson and his contribution to the Senate and to our country, but today I want to say a few words about his family. My contemporaries were the Johnson children, Luci and Lynda, and especially Lynda and Chuck Robb. Chuck was Governor of Virginia when I was Governor of Tennessee. We have known each other well since that time. I saw their daughter, Jennifer, this morning, and I can remember when she had our youngest son Will in a headlock one time at a Governors Conference. I can remember learning, either from Lynda or perhaps it was from Luci, lessons about how children--and the Presiding Officer will appreciate this, especially since his father was a distinguished Governor of Pennsylvania--about how to grow up in a family where your parents are public officials, as Senators or Governors or even Presidents, in their case. One of the Johnson girls told me she did not like very much going to political events--our children were much the same--until one day their father, President Johnson, said: Let me make a suggestion to you. I want you to find one interesting thing about three people at the event you go to, and then come back to me afterwards and tell me what you found out. Lynda told me that changed the way she thought about going to those events. It gave her a way to go to them and make them more interesting. I told all of our children that, and they did it as well. It was good advice for children of parents in public life. But in speaking of the family, I want to especially speak of Mrs. Johnson, Lady Bird, and her contribution to preserving the natural beauty of America. Mrs. Johnson convened the first White House Conference on Natural Beauty, saying: Surely a civilization that can send a man to the moon can also find ways to maintain a clean and pleasant earth. She became the de facto leader of the scenic conservation movement. She raised our consciousness about the natural world in our lives. It is fair to say she is probably the most influential conservationist in America since Teddy Roosevelt. When I visit my wife's home in the State of Texas in the spring, there are bluebonnets everywhere. Texans are immensely proud of those flowers. In Austin--and Luci Baines reminded me today it is still going stronger than ever--is the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Many States copied Texas' idea of planting wildflowers in the interstate medians. Lady Bird and Lyndon passed the Highway Beautification Act to free us from highway billboard blight and rampant ugliness. With her encouragement, President Johnson also persuaded Congress to pass the Wilderness Act, the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. She became the first woman to serve on the National Geographic Society's board of trustees. President Johnson used to joke about how he would turn around and there would be Laurence Rockefeller and Lady Bird in the East Room of the White House cooking up some new conservation agenda for him to pass in the Congress. Her legacy of natural beauty is secure, but because she is now gone, America's legacy of natural beauty is not so secure. We seem to have forgotten how much natural beauty is an essential part of our national character. Someone once said: Egypt has its Pyramids, Italy its Art, and our country the Great American Outdoors. Or, to put it less grandly, when I am at home in Tennessee, I see the streets named Scenic Drive and Blue Bird Lane, and I read the real estate ads describing the beautiful mountain views. And, if you ask Tennesseans why they live in Tennessee, even the most grizzled will say: Because there is not a more beautiful place in the world. Many Americans feel that way about our hometowns. After Lady Bird, there have come a number of stronger and more outstanding environmental organizations devoted to clean air, clean water, and climate change, and more recently, other conservation causes. But most of them seem to have diminished interest in scenic beauty. There was recently on the Senate floor an effort that nearly succeeded to gut Lady Bird's Highway Beautification Act. It would have allowed hundreds of illegal billboards to become legal. There has been almost no organized outcry about the profusion of thousands of cell towers along the same interstates and in the same communities that Lady Bird sought to protect from junkyards and billboards. These cell towers have replaced almost every available scenic view in America with a tall tower, usually ugly, always with blinking lights. And, most of it is unnecessary because they could have been co-located, or be smaller, or they could have been put below the ridge tops, or even camouflaged. And we still could have had access to our cell phones and our blackberries. The National Park Service even erected a cell tower in clear view of Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. In our enthusiasm to deal with climate change, we are spending billions of dollars to encourage Americans to erect thousands of giant wind turbines that are twice as tall as football stadiums and can be seen for 20 miles, without thinking to pass legislation that would keep them away from our most scenic views, beaches, and mountaintops. If Ansel Adams were alive today, he would probably be distraught because he would have fewer and fewer beautiful places in America at which to aim his camera. Lady Bird left America a legacy that honors an essential aspect of the American character, one that today is, unfortunately, too often ignored. If it continues to be ignored, it will never be undone. It is almost impossible to unclutter a highway or renew a view scape once that has been obliterated by ugliness. So, I would hope that one result of this commemoration of Lyndon Johnson's birthday would be to encourage someone among us--or more among us--to revive in us Lady Bird's passion for the natural beauty of America, to encourage once again the planting of wildflowers, to preserve the view scapes, and to remind American communities of how satisfying it can be to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendment.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, this is an amendment to the pending legislation which would give the mayors and chief administrative officers of cities and States the opportunity to opt out if they conclude that this law would be, in their circumstances, contrary to the best interest of public safety, No. 1, or would result in an increase in local taxes or a decrease in the level of public safety or other municipal service. In other words, if this legislation amounted to an unfunded Federal mandate, it would not be effective. Let me speak to the unfunded mandate aspect of this legislation and its interference with the prerogative of States. Those are two different ideas and two very important ideas in the American fabric. Let me begin by saying we are talking about some of the most honored men and women in our country--firefighters, policemen, and other public safety workers. That is true in Tennessee as well. We have over 700 fire departments, and we were grateful for the heroism of firefighters everywhere on 9/11. Local fire fighters in Tennessee and across the Southeast were among the first on the scene after the deadly tornadoes earlier this year. We are deeply grateful for that. Charles Martinez from Maryville, my hometown, was named Tennessee firefighter of the year in 2004 for giving his kidney to a fellow firefighter. We deeply admire him for that. In 2006, Lieutenant Terrance Andrews of Chattanooga was named Tennessee firefighter of the year for his dramatic rescue during a house fire in which he pulled the security bars away from a window to save Virginia Humphrey. Ms. Humphrey was injured and spent some time in a hospital, but she fully recovered. I admire Lieutenant Terrance Andrews' bravery. Another example, firefighter Shane Daughetee of the Highway 58 Volunteer Fire Department in Chattanooga died in the line of duty in January of last year when he was trying to rescue a family. We mourn Shane Daughetee's death and admire the bravery of that individual. All of us admire and respect the bravery of firefighters and other public safety employees in all our communities. But that is not what this legislation is about. A better name for this bill would be the ``Washington knows best unfunded mandate act.'' In the name of some of the men and women we respect the most, our firefighters, policemen, and others, we are about to commit two of Washington's worst and most flagrant sins. That is, No. 1, to take away from States and communities their right to decide their own labor relations, what they ought to be; and, No. 2, to pass an expensive piece of legislation, make it sound good, take credit for it, and then send the bill home to mayors, Governors, and local officials who will have to either raise taxes or cut services to deal with it. It is an unfunded mandate in that sense. Current Supreme Court law suggests that the tenth amendment permits the Federal Government to require State compliance with the general regulatory scheme but does not permit the Federal government to require States in their sovereign capacities to regulate their own citizens. The argument made by the distinguished Senator from New Jersey basically boiled down to this: We have it in New Jersey, so we are going to make Tennessee have it. We have decided in New Jersey that it is a good idea, so I am going to fly to Washington and impose it on Tennessee, Georgia, Wyoming, and all 21 States which have different laws. This is not a new subject. We haven't been waiting a long time to discuss this. We debated and discussed this law every year I was Governor of Tennessee in the 1980s, which is where it is supposed to be discussed, because we are discussing the labor relations of the State of Tennessee. It was discussed almost every year in the 1990s and rejected by the legislature of Tennessee in an entire series of years. I have here the years in which it was considered and rejected by our State. Tennessee considered this specific question in both the State House and the State Senate which, I might add, are majority Democratic during all of this time. In 1997, Tennessee said: We prefer to have a law in Tennessee that provides that mayors and local officials deal directly with public safety employees such as firefighters and police officers. We believe that is the best way to encourage public safety, to have strong communities, and to provide the best labor-management relationship in our State. The State legislature said that in 1997. The Democratic State legislature said it again in 1999. They said it again in 2001, 2003, and 2005. In our State of Tennessee, we will grant that a different rule might be good for New Jersey, but we have decided over the last two or three decades that way is not good for our State. What are we talking about here? What we are saying in this Federal law--which will be imposed, as the Senator from Wyoming has said, on every State, but in 21 States like ours, it overturns our law--is basically that a mayor is required to recognize a union leader, if he or she wants to sit down and talk instead of with the policemen and firemen and other public safety employees about pay, benefits, and work rules. It takes away the State's decision that says we believe it is better for the mayor to deal directly with those employees. I don't know what that will do to improve working conditions or cooperation or the public safety, but I am confident it will coerce hundreds of thousands of local policemen and firemen to pay union dues and fatten those treasuries. This bill is saying what is good for New Jersey, what is good for Massachusetts, is good for Tennessee. What I am saying is we have 90 towns in Tennessee that will be forced to change how they deal with their public employees, because someone in New Jersey or someone in Massachusetts or other States thinks that is what we ought to do. Not only does Washington know best, according to the advocates of this legislation, but also that Washington knows best how to spend our money. Because what are these discussions about? They are discussions about towns such as Pulaski, 7,800 people; Mumford, 5,000 people; Dyersburg, 17,000; Alcoa, 7,700; my hometown of Maryville, 23,000. Let me take Maryville as an example. We have good schools there. My father ran for the school board after World War II with a ticket of men and women who said: We will take all the money we have and we are going to focus on having great schools. So in that blue-collar town where at the time most of the people worked for the Alcoa plant, middle-income community, lower middle income, by and large, we slowly built up a culture of very good schools. About 75 percent, if I remember the figure correctly, of the local tax dollars go to make those schools superior. They win academic scores year in and year out. What we are saying to Maryville is: OK, the Senator from New Jersey and the Senator from Massachusetts have a better idea for you folks in Maryville. We are going to impose on you a different way of dealing with your policemen and firemen. As a result, some labor union leader from Massachusetts and New Jersey may come into Maryville and say: Instead of spending 75 percent of your money to make schools better, we want you to do this, that, or the other about public safety and reduce spending on schools and increase spending for salaries of public safety people. One could make that argument. But so far, the people in my hometown have said: We would rather not do it that way. We would rather make education our priority. We think we have a super police force. We are very proud of them. But we like the way we are doing things. The same in Sweetwater and Erwin and Bolivar and Rockwood and Church Hill and Millersville. Ninety of our towns in Tennessee would suddenly be doing things the New Jersey way, the New York way. If we wanted to do things the New Jersey way, we would move to New Jersey. We would move to Massachusetts. We would move to New York. Those are wonderful States, but we don't choose to live there. We like to do things our way, and we have always been able to. We don't have a chance to do that just out of common sense. Common sense would suggest that a big, complex country of 300 million people, where people come from all over the world and freedom and liberty are our values, that we allow people as much as possible to do things in different ways, so long as they meet with certain constitutional rights. Senator Byrd likes for us to carry around in our pockets the Constitution to which we took an oath to honor. It says in amendment X: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. In other words, it says that in the United States of America--it might not be true in some other countries--unless the Constitution says the Federal Government shall do it, the States do it. And so the States have been doing it. We don't say in this country if New Jersey does it and the Senator from New Jersey thinks it is a good idea to do it in Tennessee, make Tennessee do it. That is not the way we do things. So I don't believe this legislation is constitutional, among other things. Let me also say that as a former Governor, I am trying to make a temperate speech about this legislation, because I feel so strongly about it. But as a former Governor, when I was sitting there in Nashville, nothing made me madder than to look up to Washington and see some Congressman-- and I will have to say, sometimes they were Republicans and sometimes they were Democrats--who flew to Washington and got smarter than they were when they were back in the small towns in which they grew up. They would say in Washington: I have a great idea. They would pass it into law and hold a press conference and take credit for it, and then they would send the bill to me, the Governor. Then what would happen? The next week that same Congressman, if it was a Republican, would be home in Knoxville making a Lincoln day speech bragging about local control, and the Democrat would be in Nashville making a Jackson day speech bragging about local control, and I would be paying the bill. That is not right. That is called an unfunded Federal mandate. The American people don't like it. I will tell you how much they don't like it. I was one of those Senators--there are a lot of us--who felt a calling to run for the Presidency of the United States a few years ago in the middle of the 1990s. I didn't make it. My preacher brother-in-law said it was a reverse calling and that I should be doing something else for the people. So I am here. But I remember in 1994, 1995, and 1996, there was a strong resentment in this country toward being told what to do from Washington, DC. People had had it up to here. The Republicans seized on that. I remember Newt Gingrich and a lot of Republican candidates for Congress standing on the Capitol steps and saying: No more unfunded mandates. They put it in something they called a Contract with America. And the first piece of legislation that was passed by the new Republican Congress, elected overwhelmingly by the people, S. 1, was the no unfunded Federal mandate act. That was S. 1. We are not going to pass unfunded mandates anymore. If we are going to pass something, we are going to pay for it. This legislation doesn't pay for it. It might tell Erwin and Maryville and Alcoa and Pulaski and 90 other towns in Tennessee what they need to pay firefighters and policemen. It might tell them what to pay them or create an environment that creates a higher salary, perhaps, or a bigger benefit, but it doesn't pay the bill. Now, the Republican Congress said in 1994: No more unfunded mandates. If we break our promise, throw us out. In fact, the people have, and I think part of the reason is because some Republicans forgot about no unfunded Federal mandates. So I urge my colleagues to recognize that to impose upon a State--as different as Tennessee might be from New Jersey; as different as Wyoming might be from Georgia--we do not need the same rules and regulations. We are capable in our hometowns of making a good decision about how to have good labor relations, or how to deal directly with our volunteer firemen. We have over 700 fire departments in Tennessee-- 700--and lots of different ways of dealing with them. We do not need anybody from New Jersey or Massachusetts or somewhere else telling us how we should deal with them. This is an ominous trend. Tennessee is also a right-to-work State. Now, I know this legislation has a little section that says this does not interfere with right to work. Well, I wonder about that. Maybe this legislation by itself does not in its explicit terms. But if the Federal Government can say, in New Jersey, in New York, and other States: We have a union shop--in other words, employees do not have the opportunity to make a choice about whether to join a union--why cannot they say: It is good for New Jersey; let's have it in Tennessee? It is not a very big step. Or if New Jersey or some other--I am not just picking on New Jersey, but their Senator was here saying if this is good for them, it would be good for us--State might say: We do not see any need for the secret ballot in union elections. Let's just let employees sign cards. It makes it a lot easier to organize, and if it is good for New Jersey or New York or California, it is good for Tennessee. A lot of people moved to Tennessee because they prefer our level of taxes. They prefer the right to work. They prefer the relations we have between employers and employees. I imagine the auto industry, which is now one-third of our manufacturing jobs in Tennessee, is there because we have a different labor environment than in some other parts of the country. Now, that does not mean we do not have union workers. We have a lot of union workers. In fact, in the mid-1980s, a lot of people paid attention to our State because here came the Nissan plant, which even today is nonunion, and it is the largest, most efficient automobile plant in North America, making 500,000 or 600,000 cars and trucks a year. Right next door, 15 miles away, is General Motors' Saturn plant. When General Motors came, the United Auto Workers came, and they are a partnership. Both plants are successful. There has been some shifting and changing at the General Motors plant, but it is back on track. So we have both plants there: one where employees are required to join the union, one where people have a choice to join the union. We like it that way, and I think they like it that way. Now, we are the third or fourth largest State in suppliers. They seem to like it that way. So why would we do it the way some other State does it, especially if we figured out a better way to do it, in our opinion. Particularly in the United States of America where we have a 10th amendment to the Constitution, we believe in federalism, and we are a decentralized society. So I am very worried about this piece of legislation. I think it is bad for Tennessee. It is bad for our labor-management relations. We have enough common sense in our State--with our Democratic Governor, our Democratic House of Representatives, our Republican State senate now--to make these decisions for ourselves. Why do we need U.S. Senators telling us this? Then, when we get in the majority, we might say: What is good for us in Tennessee is good for New Jersey, and change their law; or what is good for us in Tennessee is good for New York, and change their law. We don't care about New Jersey's law. As long as we follow the constitutional rights of the people of the United States, we would like to settle things. I come from the mountains of Tennessee. My great-grandfather was asked about his politics. He said: I am a Republican. I fought with the Union and I vote like I shot. The reason we were unionists and Republicans in the Civil War--and still today--was because we did not want the Federal Government telling us what to do. This is an extreme example of serious meddling. One last example, and then I will stop. The argument is, if we can only force all these 90 Tennessee communities to collectively bargain, that will improve public safety. Well, how do we know that? Is New Jersey and New York safer than Tennessee? Do we know that for sure? Or let's take the one example in Tennessee where we have required communities to collectively bargain, and that is with teachers. The unit is an arm of the National Education Association. I have had some pretty important disagreements with my friends in the Tennessee education association over the last 25 years about what is good for education. For example, I thought it would be a good idea to reward outstanding teaching, pay teachers more for teaching well. Twenty-five years ago, our State became the first State to do so. We created a career ladder system, and we raised taxes in order to offer every single teacher a 70-percent pay increase on the State's share. Ten thousand teachers went up that ladder. Guess who the No. 1 opponent to that was. The teacher's union. Not Albert Shanker and the American Federation of Teachers, but the National Education Association. I am not criticizing them. They are very open about that. They do not like the idea of paying teachers more for teaching well. I think to improve education we should. So does that really improve education in Tennessee to require that collective bargaining? Another example: I notice a lot of teachers were worried about being sued by parents. I think that is not right. Why not offer teachers the same liability insurance the State provides to State employees? The Tennessee Education Association raised its dues to defeat my proposal because they offer liability insurance. Did that improve education in Tennessee? Or charter schools? I think charter schools are a good idea, public charter schools that leave teachers free to make their own decisions about the kids who are there. But the teachers union disagreed. That is a legitimate difference of opinion. But I think I am right. They think I am wrong. But does that improve Tennessee's schools to have them there? Choices for parents: I think the best thing to do in Nashville, for example, where schools are having a very difficult time, might be to ask all the parents where they would like to send their kids to school and see if we could do it. Give them their first, second, and third choice to see if we could probably supply that. The teachers union is opposed to that. Everyone, when we were bringing in the auto industry to Tennessee, bringing in the Nissan plant--the first time we had ever had those jobs, which raised our family incomes--I wanted to build a road out to the plant with State dollars, and the teachers union objected because they wanted me to give the money to the teachers. I thought that was short-sighted because if we improved the tax base, we would have the money to improve education. So there are differences of opinion about what would improve education, and there are differences of opinion about what would improve public safety. We like our opinions in Tennessee. That is why we do not like this bill. So I will be seeking a vote on my amendment when the appropriate time comes. I would urge my colleagues, you may be right about your own home State. Maybe it is better to require all your communities to collectively bargain. Maybe that improves safety in New Jersey or New York or somewhere else. But in Tennessee, we have considered it almost every year for the last 25 years, and we have decided a different way. We believe States ought to have the right to decide what their own labor relations ought to be. We do not believe it is a right of the Federal Government to impose unfunded mandates on us and cause us to pay our extra bills at a time when the Governor is laying off people in our State because there are not enough tax dollars coming in. This is the grossest sort of interference to the sovereignty of our State. We have a strong bipartisan opinion about this in Tennessee. That is why I am so vigorously opposed to this piece of legislation. It should be called the Washington Knows Best Unfunded Mandate Act. I am going seek to amend it. I am going to do my best to defeat it. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. ALEXANDER. I send to the desk an amendment and ask for its immediate consideration. I believe Senator Kennedy has seen a copy of it.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I believe I have the floor, and I did not say the Senator's legislation prohibits strikes, if that is his point. Out of courtesy to the Senator, I will be glad to take a question from him.

Mr. ALEXANDER. No, it does no such thing, but as we well remember, in New York City, where striking by public employees is prohibited, transit workers struck anyway because they collectively bargained and they didn't like the result. The point I make to the Senator from Massachusetts is that I have a very different view of this issue, and so do the people of Tennessee. We considered this almost every year I was Governor and decided that we did not think it was in the public interest to authorize collective bargaining for public employees, with the exception of teachers. This proposal has been considered in Tennessee repeatedly since I left the Governor's office--in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, and 2005 and each time the State has come to the same conclusion. Elected officials have come to the same conclusion in nearly half of our States. Twenty- one States have decided that in the case of public safety employees, those we admire so much and whom we count on in times of distress, collective bargaining should not be required. That is the decision of 21 States. What this legislation would do is overturn that judgment. It would say the judgment of the Senator from Massachusetts is better than that of the State legislature of Tennessee. The judgment of the Senator of Massachusetts may be better for the State of Massachusetts, but I respectfully suggest it is not better for the State of Tennessee. I imagine the Senators from 20 other States would have the same opinion. When I was Governor, I didn't think my wisdom as Governor was superior to that of the mayor of Dyersburg or the mayor of Maryville or the mayor of Nashville about what kinds of labor laws they ought to have there--or the elected city council--or what they should decide about their labor laws. I didn't try to override them in that way. What I am objecting to--and we will have a chance to talk about this--is the inappropriateness of the Congress of the United States overturning laws in 21 States that, in one form or another, do not allow for collective bargaining of public service employees. This proposed legislation would say to the mayors of small towns in Tennessee, and there are 347 total incorporated cities and towns in Tennessee, and 90 of them have a population greater than 5,000: You will collectively bargain. Instead of dealing directly with your firemen and your policemen and your other public safety employees, you will appoint somebody or let them pick somebody and you will deal with that person. The Senator from Massachusetts may think that creates better cooperation and a better police force, but the people of Tennessee do not think that, and they have considered it time and time again. Why should we decide we know more than they? There is an amendment to the Constitution. It is called the 10th amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. That is an important provision. That is the way our country was formed. We all take an oath to this Constitution, and I believe this legislation has a substantial chance of violating the 10th amendment to our Constitution. There is one other thing it does. It inevitably imposes new costs on smaller towns. Nashville has a memorandum of understanding between the city government and public safety officers. It has decided to do that. But most of our 90 cities with 5,000 or more people do not think that better communication is improved with public safety employees by collective bargaining or even a memorandum of understanding--the latter of which they are permitted to do. So here we come along and say to a small town in Tennessee: You must collectively bargain; you must appoint this person to deal with. This legislation would inevitably add to their costs. It would be an unfunded Federal mandate. I will have an amendment later which will say that this law, if it should pass--which I hope it does not--will be amended to provide that if the Governor or the chief executive officer of the city or the town in Tennessee or any other State believes this is an unfunded Federal mandate, the law has no effect. I think we have a 10th amendment problem, and we have an unfunded Federal mandate problem. I can remember when all the Republicans--Newt Gingrich, et cetera--in 1994, stood on the steps of the U.S. Capitol and said: We have had it up to here with unfunded mandates. We have had it up to here with Members of Congress who come up with these great ideas and then pass a law and then take credit for it and then send the bill to the Governor or to the mayor. That is what we would be doing here. Those same Members of Congress usually go right back to Massachusetts or Tennessee or wherever they are from, to the Jackson Day Dinner or Lincoln Day Dinner, and make a great speech about local control and how wise all the towns are. They have town meetings up in New England. We have county commissions down in Tennessee. Members of Congress say: We believe in you towns. You are the wise people, you come in and spend hours debating little issues, but we, when we fly into Washington, suddenly have this burst of wisdom that overrides all that you may do. I think the people of this country should admire and respect and honor our firefighters. But we should honor and respect and admire our Constitution and our Federal system and say that we may have different opinions in different States and different cities about what we do, and then to impose a big unfunded mandate, at least violating the spirit of the 10th amendment to the Constitution by telling every town in Tennessee and 20 other States that suddenly the law is changed, you cannot decide your labor relations anymore, we in Washington will do that for you--I think we need to rethink that. You know, what the Republicans said in 1994 was: No more unfunded Federal mandates. If we break our promise, throw us out. Well, the voters put in the Republicans--my party--in 1994 and we broke our promise and last year they threw us out. I think they will throw some more people out if we keep ignoring the will of the people and acting as if, when we fly to Washington, DC, we suddenly have a right to run amok on the 10th amendment and to overturn decisions, in my State, for example, that were debated annually during the 8 years I was Governor-- and that also were rejected in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, and 2005. This is not a bill about cooperation, this is a bill against the 10th amendment. It is a bill, in addition, that imposes inevitably unfunded Federal mandates on cities and towns that are already struggling. I hope the Senate will reject it. Mr. President, on a more optimistic note about a bigger problem, there has been a lot of discussion about gas prices. I would like to talk about gas prices and energy prices in a little different way. Some have blamed this person, some have blamed that person, some have offered a short-term remedy. I would like to challenge our Senate to do something that I believe the American people would be grateful if we did. Let me begin it with a short story. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Senator Kenneth McKellar, a Tennessean who was chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, to come down to the White House for a little discussion. The President asked Senator McKellar if he could hide $2 billion in the appropriations bill for a secret project to win World War II, and Senator McKellar replied to the President: Mr. President, that will be no problem. I just have one question: Where in Tennessee do you want me to hide it? That $2 billion and that place in Tennessee became Oak Ridge, TN, one of three secret cities that became the principal sites of what was then called the Manhattan Project. The purpose of the Manhattan Project was to find a way to split the atom and build a bomb before Germany did so the United States could win World War II. Nearly 200,000 people worked in 30 sites in 3 countries at breakneck speed until they succeeded. The $2 billion appropriation President Roosevelt asked for would be $24 billion today. According to New York Times science reporter William Laurence: Into [the project] went millions of man-hours of what is without doubt the most concentrated intellectual effort in history. On last Friday, I went back to Oak Ridge, one of those secret cities--now out in the open--and proposed that the United States launch a new Manhattan Project, this one a 5-year project to put America firmly on the path to clean energy independence. Instead of ending a war, the goal will be clean energy independence so we can deal with rising gas prices, electricity prices, clean air, climate change, and national security--for our country first and then, because the world has the same urgent needs, for the rest of the world. By ``independence,'' I do not mean the United States would never buy oil from Mexico or Canada or Saudi Arabia. By ``independence,'' I do mean the United States could never be held hostage by any country for our oil supplies. In 1942, many were afraid that Germany would get the bomb and blackmail the world. Today, countries that supply oil and natural gas can blackmail the world. Some have questioned whether the word ``independence'' is the right word. I believe it is exactly the right word. Go to the dictionary. The dictionary says that independence means you don't want to be controlled by someone. Our war of independence against Great Britain didn't mean we would never talk to them--we just didn't want to be in their pocket. I think the American people understand what we mean by clean energy independence. It is the right goal, and I would say the scientists in Oak Ridge whom I talked with on Friday seemed to agree. A new Manhattan Project is not a new idea. But it is a good idea and fits the goal of clean energy independence. The Apollo program was a sort of Manhattan Project. It sent men to the Moon. Senator McCain and Senator Obama have each suggested a new Manhattan Project for energy. I think it is time for us to begin to put some flesh on the suggestion. What would they mean? Have something ready for them and for us that we could move ahead with. Many Senators have made a similar suggestion. It is time to do more than talk. During the passage of the America COMPETES Act, we worked together across party lines--the Senator from Massachusetts, who was just here, was key to that. I worked hard on it. Senators McCain and Obama and others worked on it as well. Senators Domenici and Bingaman were the leaders on that legislation here in the Senate. Several suggested as part of that discussion on how to preserve America's competitive edge that we should focus on energy because focusing on energy independence would force the kinds of investments we need to keep our competitive position in the world. In 1942, the prospect was that Germany would get the bomb before we did. That was the overwhelming challenge. The overwhelming challenge today, according to National Academy of Sciences president Ralph Cicerone, in his address to the academy 2 weeks ago, is to discover ways to satisfy the human demand for and the use of energy in an environmentally satisfactory and affordable way so that we are not overly dependent on overseas sources. Cicerone estimates that this year Americans will pay $500 billion overseas for oil; that is $1,600 for each one of us, some of it to nations that are funding terrorists who are trying to kill us. It weakens our dollar. It is half our trade deficit. It is forcing gasoline prices toward $4 a gallon and is crushing family budgets. Then there are the environmental consequences. If worldwide energy usage continues to grow as it has, humans will inject as much CO2 to the air from fossil fuel burning between 2000 to 2030 as they did from 1850 to 2000. There is plenty of coal to help achieve our energy independence, but there is no commercial way yet to capture and store the carbon from so much coal burning--and we have not finished the job of controlling sulfur and nitrogen and mercury emissions. I suggest the Manhattan Project of World War II fits today's proposal for a new Manhattan Project for energy in the following ways. The original project proceeded as fast as possible along several tracks to reach one goal. The entire project, one engineer said, was a shotgun approach, using all possible approaches simultaneously. It had Presidential focus and bipartisan support in Congress. It had the kind of centralized, gruff leadership that only an Army Corps of Engineers general could give it. It broke the mold. Dr. Oppenheimer told his scientists in 1945 that the bomb was ``too revolutionary to consider in the framework of old ideas.'' So is clean energy independence. It began with a small, diverse group of great minds, as this one needs to as well. There are also some lessons from the America COMPETES Act that we enacted just last year. Remember how that started. A bipartisan group of us asked the National Academies: Please give us 10 things that we, the Congress and the Government, should do to keep our brainpower advantage so our jobs don't go overseas. The National Academies took us seriously, and within 3 months assembled a small group of wise men and women headed by Norm Augustine, and they gave us 20 recommendations, and we considered them. The President had his ideas. We considered proposals by other competitiveness commissions. The Speaker of the House weighed in. Within a couple of years--it got a little messy a few times--we passed a blueprint which will put us on a path to double our investments in the physical sciences and significantly upgrade our competitiveness efforts from Washington. Some people have suggested that this year is not a very good year to try such a bipartisan approach. I think it is a perfect year to try a bipartisan approach. Senator Obama and Senator McCain and Senator Clinton seem ready for it. Congressman Bart Gordon, the Democratic chairman of the House Science Committee is supportive--we were together in Oak Ridge on Friday. He and I are equally interested in this, just as we were equal participants in the America COMPETES legislation. I have talked to Senator Bingaman and Senator Domenici and Senator Murkowski. Many other Senators--I will not begin to mention them all-- have suggested this idea. I would say a Presidential election is a perfect time for this. Voters expect us to have answers to $4 gasoline, for climate change, for clean air, and to the national security implications of our overdependence on foreign oil. The people did not elect us to take a vacation this year just because it is a Presidential election year. So how to proceed? When I spoke with Senator Bingaman, the chairman of the Energy Committee, he said: Well, instead of a single Manhattan Project, maybe we need several mini Manhattan projects. And he offered to me the example that Chuck Vest, the former MIT President who is the head of the National Institute of Engineering, has made. Dr. Vest made an address in which he suggested 14 grand challenges for the 21st century for engineering; three of them had to do with energy. I think Dr. Vest and Senator Bingaman are right. We do not do comprehensive very well. I think we proved that with the collapse of the comprehensive immigration bill. Step-by-step solutions along different tracks toward a single goal are easier to digest and have fewer surprises. And, of course, the Manhattan Project itself in World War II proceeded that way. So here would be my criteria for choosing several grand challenges toward the goal of clean energy independence: Grand consequences: This is not a project for small thinking. Real scientific breakthroughs: We know how to build nuclear powerplants. I think we should be doing it. We know how to drill 50 miles offshore for oil and gas in an environmentally safe way, giving a large part of the revenues to the States so that they can then put them in trust funds for education. I think we should be doing it. We know how to do a great many things that we are not doing. But this should not be about doing things that we already know how to do. This should be about the scientific breakthroughs to help us within 5 years get firmly on a path to clean energy independence. Family budget: Our solutions need to fit the family budget so gas prices and electricity prices are something that we can afford. And finally consensus: We need to come to some consensus. We found with the America COMPETES Act that when we went for consensus, we could pass an important bill. And the members of the Augustine panel wisely put aside some subjects relevant to competitiveness, like excessive litigation, which we could argue about for days. They left that to the side and focused on 20 things they thought we could agree on, and we did. So here are seven grand challenges that I would respectfully suggest to begin the suggestion, seven scientific breakthroughs that I believe we should focus on for the next 5 years to put us firmly on a path to clean energy independence which fit the criteria that I outlined. No. 1, make plug-in electric cars and trucks commonplace. And let me offer another story. Most people remember H. Ross Perot. Many people may have forgotten how he made his money. He noticed that the banks in Dallas in the 1960s were closing their doors at 5 o'clock and turning off their new computers. So Mr. Perot asked the banks: May I buy your idle nighttime computer capacity? And they said, yes. He then went to States such as Tennessee, before I was Governor, and said: May I manage your Medicaid data? I have some computer time. They said yes. So the banks made a lot of money, the States saved a little money, and Mr. Perot made a billion dollars. Now, what does that have to do with clean energy? I would mention this: I believe the idle nighttime computer capacity of the 1960s is a lot like the idle nighttime power plant capacity in the United States today. An example: The Tennessee Valley Authority in my neck of the woods, which produces about 3 percent of all of the electricity in the United States, has the equivalent of 7,000 or 8,000 megawatts of electricity idle most nights. That would be our largest untapped resource in the region: I would think every night, or most nights, seven or eight nuclear powerplants' worth of unused electricity. Add to that how, beginning in 2010, Nissan, Toyota, General Motors, and Ford--and possibly others--will sell electric cars that can be plugged into wall sockets. FedEx is already using hybrid electricity delivery trucks. TVA could offer smart meters. Many utilities are doing that. That would allow its 9 million customers at night to plug their car or truck in and for a few dollars fill up with electricity and then drive to work and back without using a drop of gasoline. It might take a while, but it has been estimated that because 60 percent of Americans drive less than 30 miles a day, we could gradually replace most of our light cars and trucks with plug-in electric vehicles that do not use gasoline and cut our overseas oil bill by perhaps as much as half. In other words, we have got the plugs, the cars are coming, we need the cord. To good to be true? Well, have not Presidents back to Nixon promised a revolutionary car? It has never happened. But times have changed. Batteries are better, gas is $4. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask for 5 additional minutes to my time being allocated.

Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I may not use all of that time, but I wish to respond to the comments of the Senator from Massachusetts. And I will have more to say about this issue, as well, over the next 2 or 3 days as we debate this proposed legislation--involving unfunded mandates and overturning the labor laws of 21 States--about which the Senator from Massachusetts was talking. When I was Governor of Tennessee a few years ago, I remember the debate we had about whether public safety employees--firefighters, police, and others--should be allowed to collectively bargain in our State. The arguments we considered were many of the ones the Senator from Massachusetts talked about: Did we need to authorize collectively bargaining so there could be better communication, better cooperation, a more effective fire department, a more effective police department? The answer during the 8 years I was Governor was in every case, no; that it was not in the public interest for the public safety employees to collectively bargain, organize with the inevitable strike that might come because if they collectively bargained and organized, a strike was the weapon they would use to assert their rights.

Mr. ALEXANDER. No, I would rather complete my remarks.

Mr. ALEXANDER

Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, Tennesseans like our sports teams, whether it is the Lady Vols, or the Memphis Tigers, or Bruce Pearl's team from Knoxville. But John Calipari or Pat Summitt or Bruce Pearl wouldn't think of sending any of our teams into a big game with two players locked up somewhere--two players missing. That is exactly what my friend, the Democratic leader, has done for 8.7 million Americans who live in the seven-State region of the Tennessee Valley Authority. Our big game, like most Americans, is gas prices, electric prices, climate change, clean air, national security. Every Senator is on the floor talking about that; some blaming, some with solutions. I am going to Oak Ridge on May 9 to propose a new Manhattan Project to deal with clean energy independence. But our secret weapon in the TVA region is the Tennessee Valley Authority. That is how we get our clean air so we're in compliance with clean air laws and new jobs can come in. It is how we deal with climate change. They have coal-fired powerplants. It is how we deal with large amounts of electricity at a low cost. That has to do with jobs and it has to do with gas prices as well. Nissan, Toyota, and General Motors all are about to sell us plug-in hybrids that could, by some estimates, reduce the amount of gasoline we use by up to 40 percent. That would deal with gas prices. But who will supply electricity for the plug-in hybrids? The Tennessee Valley Authority. So what happens? The Democratic leader locks up two of our best players and won't let them play in the biggest game we've got. If he did that to two of our Memphis basketball players, or UT Lady Vols, or two of Bruce Pearl's players, there would be a revolt in Tennessee, and I hope there is a revolt about this. Here is what has happened: In 2004, after several years of debate, we created a new board for the Nation's largest public utility--the Tennessee Valley Authority. The President appointed nine members. They were unanimously approved. Two had short terms; they served with distinction and the President nominated them for reappointment. The Environment and Public Works Committee unanimously, under Chairman Boxer, brought them to the floor. They are ready for approval, ready to go to work. But the Democratic Leader has sent me a letter that basically says he will not allow them to be confirmed because they are Republicans. That astounds me. I ask unanimous consent to put that letter in the Record.